by Maris Morton
‘That seems like a reasonable expectation,’ Mary agreed.
‘But Alyssa’s training to be an opera singer. Apparently she’s very good. And I really feel I ought to help clear up this misunderstanding. I’d be happier if I knew they had some notion of each other’s agendas. So I think I ought to have one last stab at behaving like a mother to Martin before I hand him over to Alyssa.’
Mary was surprised. Clio had consistently avoided contact with Paul and Martin. On the other hand, thinking back to her own brief conversations with Martin, there’d been a wistfulness in his voice when he’d spoken of his mother.
‘The thing is, Mary’ — Clio was sounding so serious that her speech quavered — ‘I’m going to need your help.’
Mary had a sinking feeling that she was going to be asked to do something she wouldn’t enjoy.
‘Would you have a word with him — some time when Paul’s off playing golf and he’s on his own, naturally — and ask him to come to my room for a visit? Don’t make it sound heavy. I can’t force him to come, after all.’
Mary was relieved. That shouldn’t be too difficult. ‘Yes. I’ll do that.’
‘You’ll have to be careful.’
‘But Martin often asks how you are. I’m surprised he hasn’t been in to see you already.’
‘He wouldn’t do that. Paul’s forbidden him from coming to talk to me.’ She made an effort to smile. ‘And it’s Paul who holds the purse strings.’
‘What?’
‘That sounds dramatic, doesn’t it, and unkind. But it’s true. Martin’s dependent on Paul for his trips to Perth, the use of the unit up there, for everything, really. He hasn’t any money of his own. I know just how that feels.’ She looked away for a moment, then back at Mary.
‘While I have to admit that David was my favourite,’ she said, her voice low, ‘I loved Martin, too, and I tried to make it plain that I didn’t blame him for David’s accident. If it was anybody’s fault, it was Paul’s. But Martin shut himself off from me anyway — I have a feeling Paul might have had something to do with that — and we’ve never managed to establish a good rapport. Having him go away to boarding school so young didn’t help, but Paul insisted on that. I had hoped that when he grew up we could have an adult friendship, if we couldn’t have a normal mother-and-son one, but that never worked out either. It’s probably too late now.’
In the bright fluorescent light, Clio’s face was skull-like, her dark eyes fathomless, and Mary was moved by compassion. ‘That must be hard, when he’s your only child.’
‘Only surviving child,’ Clio said. ‘Who knows how the others would have turned out?’
‘Do you often think about them?’
‘I think about David. He was a really sweet little person, and great fun to be with. Watching his mind stretch as he learnt to do things was fascinating.’ She stopped, and Mary wondered whether it was because she didn’t want to talk about this painful subject any longer, but when she was ready Clio continued. ‘With Allegra it happened too soon, she was hardly a person at all, although if you’d ever carried a baby — you haven’t, have you? — you’d know that by the time they’re born you’re intimately acquainted with them … all that kicking and heaving about inside you …’ She looked up at Mary and tried a smile that brought out the myriad fine lines in the skin covering the bones of her face. ‘So I’d have to say I’ve made just as big a mess of motherhood as I have of love and marriage.’ Silence hung between the two women, broken only by the crackle of the fire.
‘What about your own family, Clio?’ Mary knew that when one’s life seemed to have hit a dead end, it could be a comfort to backtrack to familiar relationships.
‘My mother died when I was sixteen. She had breast cancer, and it was a long, slow torture — for all of us — until she finally died.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘My father, bless his faithful little heart, married his mistress before the grass had time to grow on my mother’s grave, and they’ve had a whole new family. I don’t know how many children. I lost touch years ago. My sister, as far as I know, is still in England, and we never had tribes of cousins or any close relatives.’
‘You must feel very much alone, then.’
Clio tried another one of her unsuccessful smiles. ‘We’re born alone and we die alone.’
‘True. But most of us would rather not live alone. Your music must have been a great help.’
‘It kept me alive. While it lasted.’
Mary couldn’t bear any more of this and turned away.
Clio struggled out of the chair. ‘I’ll go back to bed now. Thank you for listening, Mary.’
CEC WASN’T AT HOME in the stone house, but Mary tracked him down in the first of the wether sheds. He was surveying a pen full of animals that were slowly milling about, nibbling food from their elevated trough. So soon after shearing they were still very white, and as lean as whippets, their jackets hanging loose. The sound of her footsteps on the metal mesh alerted Cec, and he looked up with a grin.
‘I came to congratulate you, Cec. That’s a tremendous achievement. Well done!’ She stopped beside him and leant against the pen’s cool steel railing. ‘Mrs Hazlitt asked me to give you her congratulations, too. She was delighted to hear the news.’
‘Did she? Did she really? That means a lot to me. You can tell her that we should do even better with this lot.’ He nodded down at the sheep; one of them rumbled a bleat as if agreeing. ‘I thought maybe she’d lost interest, with being so sick.’ He looked away from Mary, embarrassed to be making such a personal comment. ‘The Missus was very much involved in the stud side of things. We miss seeing her around the place. Do you think …’ His high forehead creased with worry. ‘Is she …’
‘No, Cec. For a while I thought she seemed better, but I was wrong.’
Cec turned back to the sheep. ‘I was just having a word with these fellows, telling them they’ve done real well. These are the ones.’
Mary looked at the animals with respect, but they seemed the same as all the others in the shed. ‘How do you know it was these?’
‘I know their faces! Well, almost. Mary, these animals are so well documented that I know if one of them has‹ a bad dream. See the ear tags? They’re coded. I punch the code into the computer and up comes his life story, and his parents’ life stories, the quality of the wool and the prices, everything, including what he’s had to eat.’
Mary felt stupid; she should have known that little would be left to chance in this business, but she hadn’t seen Cec come into the homestead to use the computer in the office there. ‘Where do you keep your computer?’
Cec nodded to the end of the shed, where a cubicle was partitioned off to form a tiny office. ‘All the records are in there.’
‘Ah. So, do you give them something special to eat, to celebrate? Champagne, or the sheep equivalent?’
‘Would if I could!’ Cec chuckled with her. ‘But I’ll leave all that to Paul. If past history’s anything to go by, he’ll be celebrating for the lot of us.’
21
NEXT MORNING, THERE WAS STILL NO SIGN of Paul or Martin. It wasn’t till just before dinnertime that Garth came over with the news.
‘I had a phone call.’ His expression was grim. ‘Young Martin was driving home late last night and ran the bloody ute into a ditch. Neither of them was wearing a seatbelt, of course. Paul hit his head on the windscreen. Cracked the glass and his head. Martin probably broke a rib or two on the steering wheel. No airbags in that old ute.’
‘Shit!’ Mary said. ‘Are they all right?’
‘Pair of them are in Glendenup hospital, feeling sorry for themselves. Serve them right, too. Probably hungover to buggery.’
Mary smiled agreement. They’d had a lot to celebrate.
‘Martin phoned to get me to take the tractor and pull the ute out of the ditch, and organise for the panel shop in Glendenup to tow it. That took all morning. I just got back.’
It wasn’t like Garth to be so cr
oss but she couldn’t blame him. She wondered when the men would be able to come home, and how they’d get here if the ute was out of action; but it wasn’t her problem. At least they wouldn’t be demanding that she go and fetch them.
When she took Clio some dinner — a tiny amount of a spicy Indian lamb dish — she broke the news. Clio hardly looked up from eating. ‘I didn’t even notice they were gone. The fools ought to know better. Garth said it wasn’t serious, did he?’
Mary was struggling to remember his exact words. ‘I think so. Would you like me to phone the hospital?’
At that suggestion Clio raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ve got to be joking!’
Late in the afternoon Martin appeared, unshaven, embarrassed and sorry for himself. He’d managed to get a lift from a neighbour.
‘They’re keeping Dad in another day,’ he told Mary. ‘It looks like quite a bad concussion. He was out to it till they got him to the hospital. Bled like a stuck pig, the ute’s covered in it. Will the panel beaters clean it up? Or will we have to get Garth to do it?’
‘I doubt the smash place will. Why don’t you do it? How long before it’s fixed, anyway?’
Martin looked blank. ‘No idea. Probably be weeks. Dad’ll give me a hard time over it.’
‘You were driving, were you?’
‘Dad was way too pissed, the only reason. He made me.’
Mary made no comment, wondering whether this was a good time to ask Martin to go and see his mother. There might never be a better one, so she plunged in. ‘How are you feeling?’ Martin looked surprised at her concern, but it was no use sending him in to Clio if he was feeling rotten.
‘I’m okay. It only hurts when I laugh’ — he managed a feeble grin — ‘or breathe.’
‘Did they strap you up?’
‘No, they don’t do that any more. I’ve just got to put up with it for two or three weeks while it fixes itself. It’s just one rib cracked and the rest badly bruised, they said. I’ve got pills.’
Mary took her chance. ‘Your mother was talking about you the other day. She’d like you to come and have a chat with her.’
Martin’s face lit up with a childlike eagerness. ‘Did she? Does she really want to see me?’ Then he remembered, and frowned.
Mary understood. ‘Your dad’s not here, and I’m not about to say anything. Would you like to go in now? I’ll check to see if she’s awake …’
‘I better have a shower and shave first,’ he said.
‘Good idea. While you’re doing that, I’ll tell her you’re on your way.’
Clio insisted on putting on a clean nightgown and brushing her hair, but there was nothing she could do to make herself look less ill, and Mary had a sudden insight into the shock Martin would feel when he saw her for the first time in months. She could try to warn him, but that was all.
When she heard him come out of his room, damp from the shower and reeking of expensive aftershave, she intercepted him. He was wearing his cashmere sweater and brogues, not the usual ugg boots. He’d dressed up to visit his mother; Mary was touched.
‘Just a word before you go in,’ she said. ‘If you’re expecting her to look the same as she did when she went up to Perth, you’ll … you’ll get a shock. She’s not well, and she’s terribly thin. Try not to let it show, eh?’
Martin nodded, licked his lips and swallowed, and knocked on the closed door of his mother’s room.
WHEN CLIO SAW HIM standing there, she thought for a moment he was Paul; they were so much alike, even more so now than when she’d last seen her son. But when Martin walked over the polished floor to the blue chair, she could see at once that he’d never have his father’s grace of movement. She felt a pang of compassion that took her by surprise.
She was surrounded by white pillows in a pool of light from the bedside lamp, and once Martin was settled, self-consciously crossing his legs, she could see on his face the look of shock she’d half expected.
‘As you see, Martin, I’m still far from well, which is why you haven’t seen me running around the place.’ She gave him a little smile and folded her hands on the turndown of the sheets. ‘But there’s nothing I need you to do. I asked you to come and see me because’ — she searched for the words that would express what she felt a great need to say — ‘because with you getting married so soon I’m concerned that you and Alyssa have different expectations of married life. If I can help you to resolve those differences, I’ll feel I’ve been a real help. I want you both to be happy.’
She could see from Martin’s face that he’d tuned out. So she tried another approach.
‘Alyssa came to see me in hospital, did she tell you? I thought it was very nice of her. She’s lovely, and I can understand why you want to marry her.’ She was encouraged to see from his expression that he was listening again. ‘She told me about her singing. Do you know when the performance of Carmen is scheduled? Has it happened yet? They usually have long rehearsal periods for a student production.’
‘It’s going to be on next week, during the Show. She’s still got rehearsals all the time. I have a hard time getting her away.’
This was what she’d been fearing. ‘I expect it’s very important to her. Micaela’s a small part, but a very important one, so I hope you’ll give her all the support you can.’
Martin looked uncomfortable and uncrossed his legs, scraping his brogues on the polished floor. ‘It’s only music,’ he muttered.
Clio made a herculean effort to stifle her anger. ‘But it’s important to her,’ she insisted, keeping her voice calm. ‘Vitally important. She loves it. Can you understand that?’
Martin looked into her face, puzzled. ‘No. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like that about anything. I love Alyssa, and she says she loves me. So how can she be like that about music, too? I don’t understand. When we’re married she’ll be giving all that up, anyway.’
Clio had been right to worry. But she knew her son well enough to understand that there was no point in going head-to-head with him. ‘And what did she say, when you told her that?’
‘Nothing.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘But it’ll be okay. Soon as she’s got a couple of kids to chase after, she won’t have time to think about singing.’
Clio was fighting back tears. Poor wretched girl! ‘Do you have any idea how things will change at Downe when she comes here to live?’
‘She’ll fit in okay.’ He didn’t look as confident as he sounded. ‘Dad likes her, and she gets on really well with —’ he stopped himself, and Clio waited — ‘with all my friends.’
Clio abandoned the subject; she wasn’t going to get anywhere with it. ‘Mary tells me you’ve been in an accident? Are you all right?’
‘Just a bent rib and a few bruises, nothing to worry about.’
‘And your father? He’s not too badly hurt?’
‘Far as I know. They’re keeping him in till they’re sure his head’s okay.’
Clio sighed and relaxed against the pillows. ‘I still get the horrors when I hear about any of you being involved in a car accident.’
After a long pause, Martin said one word: ‘David.’
‘David’s dead, but you’ve never been the same since the accident either.’
‘David was your favourite.’
‘And you were always your father’s favourite, Martin. Fair’s fair.’
Clio watched him, proud of his good looks, comparing his face to that of the boy David’s, as he might have looked if he’d had the chance to grow up.
‘You always blamed me for David,’ Martin blurted out.
‘No, Martin, I never blamed you. If anything, I blamed your father. You were just a little boy.’
‘Dad said …’ Martin was looking down at his shoes. ‘You would’ve been right to blame me. It was my fault.’
Clio was getting impatient with his raking over of ancient history. ‘Nonsense, Martin. You were nine years old.’
But Martin was in confessional mode and sat up strai
ght, clamping his hands over his knees. ‘It was my fault,’ he said loudly, ‘because I was picking on David. He was being a terrible little sissy and I was punching him and pushing him and generally acting like … like a real shit.’
‘As you so often did,’ Clio said, her voice neutral.
Martin flushed. ‘I wasn’t nice to him, was I. He wasn’t really that bad, but you liked him best and I wanted you to like me best. I’d have done anything to make you like me best.’ Clio was uncomfortable with this display of neediness. ‘I was being such a shit that Dad stopped the ute and made David get on the back. He must’ve had a hangover or something because he was really pissed with us that morning.’ He took a deep breath and let it out. ‘So it was my fault David was on the back of the ute, when Dad was in a snit and driving like a maniac … and David fell off. It was me that started picking on David so it was me Dad should’ve made get in the back.’ Relieved to have unburdened himself, he sat back and crossed his legs again.
Clio was appalled. This explained a lot. No wonder Martin had kept aloof from her all these years. Bearing guilt like that, it would’ve been strange if he hadn’t. Could she offer him absolution and hope to heal the breach now that he was grown up and getting married? It would be easy to offer glib forgiveness that might make him feel better but wouldn’t do a thing for her.
‘Thank you for telling me that, Martin. It can’t have been easy. You were both to blame. But your father was an adult and you were just a child, so he must still bear most of the responsibility.’ She closed her eyes and rested her head back against the pillow. ‘Now I’ll have to ask you to leave me. I’m very tired.’
22
MARTIN WAS UNCHARACTERISTICALLY LATE for breakfast. When he finally came, slow-footed, out of his room, he sagged into his chair and buried his head in his hands, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands.
‘Are you feeling okay?’ Mary asked.
He stared up at her, his eyes puffy. ‘Couldn’t sleep,’ he said. ‘I know you told me Mum was crook but … I didn’t think she’d look god-awful as that.’
